Each of these has a page written about Hudson specifically.
Most of the sealable surface in Hudson belongs to three things: the Carmichael Road retail at Exit 2, the hospital and county campuses off that same interchange, and the plants and warehouses out at Hanley Road. Property managers in the east metro often work to a no-coal-tar spec, because Minnesota banned the sale and use of coal tar sealer statewide in 2014, and a manager with buildings on both sides of the river tends to write one spec for all of them. Wisconsin has no statewide ban and neither the city nor St. Croix County has passed one, so on this side of the bridge the material is the owner's choice rather than a rule. We run an asphalt emulsion. On a lot this size the area gets measured rather than estimated by eye, and the number is fixed before we start.
Crack Filling and Sealing
Hudson's lots sit on glacial deposits that get deeper toward this end of the county, running from bedrock at the surface in places to more than 450 feet in the buried valleys. Two lots a mile apart don't necessarily behave the same way in March. A big flat retail lot on Carmichael Road cracks in long straight runs, and a crack left open takes water into the base every thaw. The wide ones get routed and filled with rubber at 400 degrees, thin enough at that temperature to reach the bottom and bond to the walls.
Asphalt Repair and Patching
The truck traffic here is concentrated in a few places: a 640,000 square foot distribution center on 64 acres at WI 35 and Hanley Road, the warehouses on Industrial Street, the dock sides of the plants. A dock approach fails before the rest of the lot does, because that's where loaded trailers stop, turn and sit. Where the surface has gone but the base is sound, the repair is a saw-cut patch back to sound asphalt. Where the base is soft it gets dug out, rebuilt and compacted first, because hot mix laid over a soft base fails in the same spot.
Hudson has been an MS4 community since 2017, with a stormwater chapter covering erosion control, post-construction stormwater and illicit discharge, and a stormwater utility billed quarterly. That's the city's system; the structures inside your lot line are yours. On a big retail lot off Carmichael Road or a truck court out at Hanley, the basin is the low point everything runs to, and the joint between the frame and the structure is where the water gets in and the frost works. By the time the asphalt is breaking up in a ring around the grate the structure has been moving for years, and rebuilding it means the structure, a new collar and the asphalt keyed back in at the right pitch.
The county Government Center and Courthouse on Carmichael Road and the hospital on Stageline Road are public lots, so ADA stalls and access aisles go in at the federal dimensions and fire lanes get marked. The retail at Exit 2 is a different problem: a lot that fills off an interstate exit needs drive aisles a delivery truck can actually turn in. Out at the business park it's truck court layout more than car stalls, with trailer positions and the approach to each dock. Paint goes on chalked lines after the sealer has cured.
Track and Athletic Surfaces
Hudson High School is on Vine Street with about 1,700 students, and it runs boys' and girls' track and field and boys' and girls' tennis. UW-River Falls has a satellite campus in the city as well. Track and court surfaces are summer work, because they need the pavement warm and dry and the season over. What a district gets out of the off-season is a written scope with quantities on it, in a form a board can act on.
Dock aprons out at the business park, dumpster pads behind the Carmichael Road stores and restaurants, curb and gutter around the county campus. The apron in front of a dock takes a trailer's landing gear and a tractor's drive axle in the same square yard, which is why concrete goes there and asphalt doesn't last. Commercial pours go down at 4,500 PSI with tied rebar, and the asphalt is keyed back in around the edge.
St. Croix Business Park still markets large parcels for employment centers and distribution warehouses, and a food company broke ground on a 20,000 square foot building in the city. There are 37 acres platted along Carmichael Road with five commercially zoned properties on it and two multi-family buildings of 110 units each, and a four-story 128-unit senior building is going up on Annabelle Way with heated parking underneath. New lots on ground like that go down on a graded, compacted, drained base, because the base decides how long the surface lasts. On an existing lot the question is whether that base is still good, and that's what settles overlay against tear-out.
